AstroNerdBoy bloviates and rambles about different things.

Tag Archives: Carb Addicts Diet

It is Saturday, which means it is time to get on them scales of doom again. This week, I weighed in at 319.2 pounds, which is a loss of 2.2 pounds from last week’s 321.4, and a new low since it drops be below my previous low two weeks ago of 319.6 pounds. Needless to say, I’m pleased with the results, though I wasn’t sure this was going to be a positive weight loss week.

As I said last week, I decided to drop the 5:2 Diet portion of my weight loss scheme. The 5:2 Diet is great to get the ball rolling as it acts like a 2-punch sledgehammer, but I was ready to move on from the sledgehammer. Also, thought I haven’t mentioned this before on my 5:2 Diet fast days, I was always really cold, even on warm days. I guess my blood pressure may have been down on those days, but I couldn’t say for sure.

Regardless, because I had dropped the 5:2 Diet, I monitored my weight pretty closely this week, something I don’t usually do. I pretty much decided to eat as normal using the Carb Addicts Diet rules so I wasn’t too bad for the week on the eating front. (I did have a chocolate cream filled long john on Saturday, and a “big breakfast” brunch for my carb meal on Sunday.) However, I was horrified to see my weight shooting up to a peak of 325 pounds by Tuesday. After that, the weight loss began with a big drop, followed by a continued, slow drop on the subsequent days thereafter.

I figure that my body was reacting to having the 5:2 Diet completely removed with the weight gain, but then recovered and I resumed weight loss the rest of the week.

Hopefully, I’ll continue this positive trend and not start dreaming of food. ^_~

Another week has come and gone, and with it, it is time for me to get on the scales. This week there’s been a small setback as the scales reported 321.4, which is a 1.8 pound increase from last week’s 319.6, and 0.2 pounds above two weeks ago. Not good, but considering how the week went, it could have been worse.

The week started off with a bad day as I decided to head down to a Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up some Chocolate Kreme Filled donuts. Sadly, they were out of them, but then the manager had two special made while I waited in the drive-thru, which she gave me for free as well as a dozen, fresh made glazed donuts (first time I’ve had these from Dunkin’ Donuts, and it will be the last time as they don’t do glazed donuts right, unlike Krispy Kreme, who does). The Chocolate Kreme Filled donuts were outstanding, and though I shouldn’t have, I went ahead and ate both, plus a glazed (the rest of the glazed are still sitting in my freezer). Some family members expressed concern over this, but I said that as long as the rest of the week was good, I’d be OK. Famous last words.

Sadly, there were a number of events at work so that I was provided with free pizza, free cookies, free sandwiches, and free cheesecakes. Being that this stuff was free, naturally, I had to partake, and that was what killed me for the most part.

I probably could have recovered on Friday, which was my scheduled 5:2 Diet fast day. Since the snow storm that came through had me working from home that day, combined with it being a very busy work day, I ended up deciding to just go with a normal Carb Addicts Diet eating day in order to better get me through the day. Had I done the 5:2 Diet day, I no doubt would have dropped back below 320 pounds this morning.

Still, this small setback actually gives me a good excuse to do something I’d been pondering for a while. The 5:2 Diet has been great for getting me on the path, but it isn’t something I could do for life, whereas the Carb Addicts Diet is something I could do for the rest of my life, if needed.

Before I added the Carb Addicts Diet portion to the 5:2 Diet weight scheme, I noticed that on the days after a 5:2 Diet fast, I would overcompensate by having a mega feast the next day. After adding the Carb Addicts Diet to the overall weight loss scheme, I stopped mega feasting the day after, but at times, I still had a tendency to still eat too much, as evidenced when I went ahead and had both Chocolate Kreme Filled donuts (as mentioned above). I was satisfied after the first donut was consumed, but I said, “who cares” and ate the others.

Further, I have noted to myself that on days prior to a 5:2 Diet fast day, I have been eating more heartily that evening with the excuse, “Well, I need to fortify for a tough day of eating very little tomorrow!” That’s not a good thing.

As such, I’m going to drop the 5:2 Diet portion of my weight loss scheme and just continue with the Carb Addicts Diet portion. Back in 2007, I dropped from ~330+ pounds to 285 pounds in 2008 just on the Carb Addicts Diet, so weight loss can easily be done on this diet plan alone. The 5:2 Diet did what it was intended, but I feel now that in order to better proceed in my long term weight loss goals, I need to move on from it.

We’ll see how things go for the next four weeks and revisit the 5:2 Diet if needed. For now, it is a solo Carb Addicts Diet.

The third complete week in January has come to an end, which of course means that it is time for me to get on the scales. The weight loss continues as I weighed 319.6 this morning, which is a drop of 1.6 pounds from last week’s 321.2. While not the two pounds a week I would prefer, the continued weight loss is all that matters in the end.

I have to say that I was somewhat disbelieving of the scales. For starters, dropping below 320 looks odd to me (though I’ll get used to it) when I see it on the scales. I also had a couple of days were I didn’t break either my 5:2 Diet rules nor the Carb Addicts Diet rules, but where I did splurge food-wise.

Last Saturday, I made a large pot of spaghetti, which is tied with cheeseburgers as a favorite food of mine, and I overindulged somewhat. Wednesday, I went out with Dev-san and Tests-a-lot to Sushi Den for lunch. I had recorded training lessons of the martial arts style that Tests-a-lot teaches for Dev-san, so he repaid us by buying lunch. I had the chicken and vegetable tempura, which was incredible, and a bowl of miso soup, which was the best I’ve EVER had. Dev-san got me to try a couple of pieces of sushi. (I don’t remember the names, but I think one had grilled fatted tuna and the other was some raw fish of some kind.) There was a desert we shared, but the killer was probably the glasses of Coke with grenadine. ^_^; It was all good though.

Although it has been three weeks, I still don’t feel in a groove. I have made progress in my weight loss, for which I am thankful, but I still don’t have the right mindset. I have found that even when I haven’t craved foods on my Carb Addicts Diet days, I still want to eat, even if I still feel full. This is just a mental thing and I just need to put it in its place.

I know I have one bad thing coming up later today, but hopefully, that’ll be it and I’ll have a net positive week in weight loss. ^_^;

It is the end of the second full week of 2014, which means it is time for me to do my weekly weigh in. I am happy to report that the positive progress continues as the scales reported my weight this week at 321.2, which is a loss of 1.6 pounds from last week’s 322.8.

It was a pretty normal week. No faltering on my 5:2 Diet days, nor on my Carb Addict Diet days. I did have a close call last night as I became the cameraman for some friends making a martial arts training video, but because the recording session ended up lasting until 22:00, their plans to take me out to eat awesome Japanese food are being delayed until this upcoming week.

Being a big Florida State Seminole college football fan, my boys winning the final BCS National Championship was pretty awesome for me. I’ve been a Seminole football fan since I was a kid in 1978. FSU’s previous national championship titles were nice, but not quite what I wanted. In 1993, FSU had one loss in the regular season, so that national championship was tainted to me. In 1999, FSU had a good year, but with one close call against an unranked Clemson team, where FSU only won 17-14.

This year was the year I’ve been looking for. FSU spanked every team they played in the regular season, including scoring a record-high 80 points in one game. Only our arch rivals, the University of Florida Gators, held us under 41 points. Even there, we won 37-7, so there was no mistaking who the dominate team was. ^_^ Now that we know the only reason Auburn was able to hold FSU in check during the first half of the BCS National Championship game was because they were stealing the signs, FSU’s close call win over Auburn in that game no longer disappoints me (I had hoped FSU would spank Auburn).

So, why tell you this?

Well, being that my current girth means I’m wearing 5x t-shirts (if I wore jeans over my gut, I could wear 4x with no real problem), there are no FSU National Champions t-shirts in that size. The biggest one I could find was 3x.

As such, I now have a new, additional mission — lose weight so I can wear my FSU Nation Champions t-shirt. ^_^

It is time for my 2014 weight loss, week 1 report. Last week I was at 324.0 pounds. This week, the scales gave me a surprising bit of good news as I weighed in at 322.8 pounds. While that’s only a 1.2 pound loss, I had been afraid that I would actually gain weight for the week.

Last Sunday, I had a failure as I didn’t follow the Carb Addicts Diet part of my weight loss scheme. As such, I ended up having a couple of large, regular meals. Monday, I decided to see what the damage was as I went into my 5:2 Diet fast day part of my weight loss scheme. The scales reported me at 327.8 that morning, but I knew that I had the rest of the week to correct things.

Tuesday morning, I weighed in again just to see the correction in my weight (for psychological reasons), and was shocked to see the scales report 329.0. I thought the scales MUST be broken because after a 5:2 Diet fast day, I didn’t see how I could have gained another 1.2 pounds. But, no matter how often I weight myself, the result was almost always the same. (I say “almost” because sometimes, the scales do go a bit wonky, which is why I have to weigh myself at least three times, just to make sure things are right.)

Naturally, I was bummed by this, but I knew I couldn’t let this get me derailed, as has happened in previous weight loss attempts on my part. Thus, I am glad to see the 322.8 weight today. (I weighed myself a dozen times today because I couldn’t believe it, but the scales only wavered a bit to report slightly lower weight a couple of times.)

I’m making chicken curry rice tomorrow for my Carb Addict Diet lunches on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I just have to make sure I don’t don’t go el nutso and try to eat a massive pile, like this (see image below). ^_~

Heh!heh! At Gold Curry in Japan, if you can eat this 22-pound curry rice dish in an hour, not only is it free (the meal costs ¥8000, which depending on the dollar-yen exchange rate, is usually around $80, give or take some dollars), but the restaurant will pay you ¥100,000 (~$950 to $1000). I’d love to see some of the professional eaters try to master that. I don’t see how one could eat that much rice. ^_^;

Kotaku has all of the details about Gold Curry’s curry rice challenge, including the various levels of the challenge and pics of those trying to eat the smaller sizes.

Happy new year, everyone! With the start of 2014, it is time for my new year’s weight loss to begin. Last week had been terrible with all of the extra food consumed and a near 100% abandonment of the 5:2 Diet and Carb Addicts Diet combo scheme that has been working pretty well for me. This week, I only had two bad days before getting back on the wagon, which is a good thing.

So, for my first new year’s weight loss report, what did the scales say? A non-surprising weight of 324.0, a correction of 8.8 pounds. Since I had the two bad days, I knew that I wouldn’t lose all 11.6 pounds I’d gained last week, but I didn’t know how much of a correction I’d have this week.

As for the new year’s weight loss goals, I’m pretty much going to keep to the plan. Ideally, I’d like to lose about two pounds a week. Eventually, I want to drop the 5:2 Diet portion of the scheme, but for now I’m keeping it. I’ve switched my two fast days so that if something unexpected comes up, I have greater flexibility in moving a fast day around (the fast days cannot be consecutive).

On the Carb Addicts Diet part of the scheme, I’m obviously going to stick with that, making my carb meal at lunch as it has been. That works the best.

So, here’s to another year of losing weight. Lord willing, I’ll be much better this time next year. ^_^

Hey everyone. I hope you all had a good Christmas. Mine was a bit more interesting than I wanted, but that’s the way it is. Since it is Christmas and I’m trying to lose weight, it is now time for some Christmas weight loss fun. I say “fun” because before I’ve stepped on the scales, I know that it won’t be pretty. Indeed, there won’t be any Christmas weight loss is what I’m predicting. If I somehow end up with no weight gained, that would be a huge victory.

So what’s the verdict? An astonishing (yet not so astonishing when I think about it) 332.8, meaning that in one week, I packed on 11.6 pounds. I knew I’d gain weight, but man, I didn’t realize it would be quite so massive. ^_^;

I knew this week would be bad from the start. I had planned to make some accommodations to limit the damage, but alas, there were way too many things unaccounted for. As such, I ingested way to many cakes, cookies, pies, and other deserts, to say nothing of the various other foods I had on a daily basis. I only had one 5:2 Diet day, and none of my Carb Addict days. So yeah, it was pretty bad all the way around, and I knew I was in for failure of some sort by the time Tuesday hit.

This week, I do have a couple of bad days right from the start, but after that, I should be back on the wagon pretty much and hope to see a return to the weight loss rather than any more gains.

Another week has come and gone, and with it, it is time for a new weight loss check-in report. With the fun of the week, what do the scales say? I was completely stunned when the scales reported a weight of 321.2, a weight loss of 2.4 pounds. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve very happy about this, but I didn’t think I’d lose much weight at all. Indeed, I had to check the scales several times this morning.

To be honest, it wasn’t a great week for me on the weight loss front. One element of the fun was having one of my 5:2 Diet fast days hijacked at work due to foods being served there. Company B provided tubs of various flavored popcorn, cookies, muffins, pretzels, and more. Then, there was the free pizza. Well, it is the festive season, so they say. ^_^;

Another element of the fun came when one of my comrades in the development team, “Dev-san” (not a very creative name, but there ya go), invited me to his house last Saturday for food and a movie. He is married to a Japanese woman, so the promise of a home cooked Japanese meal was too much to pass up, even though this meant violating the Carb Addict Diet part of my weight loss scheme. ^_^

Mrs. Dev-san decided to go mostly with izakaya type foods, which are the Japanese equivalent to “party foods” in my mind as everything is bite-sized and rice is off the menu for drinking purposes. It was really good, so I thought I’d breakdown what we had. (The pictures aren’t from our actual get together, but next time we do this, I’m bringing my camera for sure!)

Karaage— These are bite-sized, fried chicken pieces, similar to boneless chicken wings without any sauce on them. The breading and seasoning on karaage is a bit different from American breading on fried chicken, but it is quite good.

Okonomiyaki— This is often called a Japanese pancake, but I rather dislike calling it a pancake. However, because there’s a batter, the term “pancake” is used. That being said, the one made by Mrs. Dev-san was a veggie one, meaning the batter had shredded cabbage and onion. It was cut like a pizza and was very much like a pizza in how it looked, though one doesn’t pick up a piece of okonomiyaki with one’s fingers. Regardless, it was most excellent. ^_^

Cold tofu salad — I’m not a fan of tofu, which is rather bland on its own, and it has a texture that for some reason doesn’t go well with me. Mrs. Dev-san did an excellent job of presentation and it was well made (unlike the picture below, hers had halved small tomatoes all around and some other garnishment and a dressing). I just don’t care for tofu, but I had some just the same. ^_^

Yasai no Nikumaki — In English, this would be Beef and Vegetable Rolls. By “rolls”, I don’t mean a bread product, but rather shaved beef steak that’s wrapped around a vegetable stick of some kind, then fried. Mrs. Dev-san used green beans as her vegetable (the image below uses some other vegetable), and man, was this awesome. ^_^

Nibitashi Zucchini — Nibitashi is a kind of vegetable cooking where the vegetable is boiled in dashi. Dashi is a kind of broth, stock, or soup. In this case, it was a broth made from soy sauce. Obviously, the vegetable here was zucchini (sliced), but Mrs. Dev-san also made the nibitashi with bacon. As a Southerner, I fully approved of this, since bacon makes lots of things taste better. ^_^ No images ’cause there was nothing on the Net like what we had.

Tamago-maki — This dish is a type of Japanese omelet (different from a Western omelet), which is rolled up and cut into pieces. Very good stuff. (Sometimes, this is called tamagoyaki.)

Nimono Kobacha — Nimono is another Japanese cooking style (simmering) and kobacha is a Japanese pumpkin (sometimes referred to as a squash). Very tasty indeed. ^_^

Oshitashi Nappu — Oshitashi is another Japanese cooking style. Instead of the usual spinach that seems to be used for oshitashi, Mrs. Dev-san used nappu, which is Chinese cabbage. This was topped with katsuobushi, dried bonito fish flakes. This was the one thing that I wasn’t sure about, but it was most excellent. The bonito flakes came off more like dried, bacon flakes rather than fish flakes. Regardless, I really liked it.

There was sake and umeshu to boot (rice wine and plum wine respectively). Good stuff and good times. ^_^

More fun happens next week. We’ll see how the weight loss goes. I can already report that my Saturday was completely destroyed for losing weight. ^_^;

Just a quick weight loss post here since my entire weekend was completely tied up in other things. That being said, I did weigh in on Saturday, as usual, and the scales reported 323.6, which is exactly a two pound loss over last week. Clearly, a good week for me, and I continue the number of consecutive weeks with at least some weight loss. That’s an improvement for sure over how things were. ^_^

Next week, and indeed the rest of the month of December, are going to prove very tricky as I will be engaged in quite a number of activities that will challenge both the 5:2 Diet aspects of my weight loss scheme as well as the Carb Addicts Diet part. In fact, Saturday night already challenged that part, but I’ll have to talk about that next Saturday. Hopefully, it didn’t mess me up too badly, but I will say this — there was awesome, homemade Japanese food, sake, and some VERY delicious umeshu (plum wine).

That is the brand (Choya) if you were wondering. It is a sweet wine, served best over ice. And yeah. those are fermented plums in the bottle. ^_^ As I said, VERY tasty stuff. ^_^

My December weight loss journey begins, and as is custom for Saturdays, I start things off by weighing in. So, what do the scales say? I weighed in at 325.6 pounds, only a 0.6 pound loss from last week, but it could have been worse.

So, where did I go wrong?

Carryover from Thanksgiving.

When I got up last Saturday, my plan had been to just eat a light breakfast, which is my normal routine now for Saturdays, after which I would indulge in leftover Thanksgiving foods — turkey, rice, turkey gravy, hot buttered rolls, salad, and of course, pumpkin pie with Cool Whip.

Sadly, seeing the food there, I decided that I didn’t want to wait until lunch to indulge, but would eat my carb meal (as part of the Carb Addicts Diet portion of my weight loss scheme) for breakfast instead.

All was well until around three or so in the afternoon. I’d planned to have some carb-free meal, but I kept thinking, “I never did get the ‘go back for a second round’ aspect when I had Thanksgiving last Thursday. I really, REALLY want to do that.” So, with a very terrible, “who cares” attitude, I piled food on my plate and scarfed, with extra pie to boot.

I can’t even imagine how many calories I sucked down Saturday, but it wasn’t pretty. I did check the scales a couple of days later and saw a nearly five pound pickup. ^_^; So I am thankful that in the end, I still lost weight for the week, even if only a small amount.

As an aside, I didn’t have that kind of failing today, but it was a junk food kind of day. The rest of the week, I’ll have to be good.